Green Comet

Announcement

Continuing the serial release of The Plainsrunner under a Creative Commons license – Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (CC-BY-SA).

Please let me know in the comments whether you’re enjoying this. It will help me to decide whether to do it again.

rjb

Chapter Ten – Oh, My Ancestors

Sage opened her eyes in time to see the flier still tumbling away from her. She shook the dirt off of her face and jumped to her feet. Her right pannier slid down her ribs and hung there at an angle. Its top was broken and some of her stuff was strewn in the grass. Her eyes darted and found her glider, and she was surprised by the relief she felt. She glanced at the downed flier, which had come to a stop, then she did a quick scan of the sky in case it had a partner. She saw it straight above her, high up and turning in a slow circle.

She undid the ropes and removed her panniers, getting a quick look at the damage as she did. Nothing too serious. Nothing she couldn’t fix. She stood them on the ground and shucked the blanket she wore under them. A quick look told her that she didn’t have any serious injuries under there, so she turned her full attention to the shrieking, thrashing flier and its partner high above.

With her hand on the hilt of her knife, she moved forward. Brushing grass and dirt off of her neck and chest, she approached the injured animal, careful to stay out of reach of its long neck. Even like this it could still seriously injure her with that savage, hooked beak, and that would not be an amusing irony. As it moved and rolled about, its talons and its beak slashing at the spear where it protruded from its body, she could see that it looked wrong. The whole blade was showing where it stuck out of the top of the body, but there wasn’t any shaft showing at the entry point in the flier’s breast.

“Oh, my ancestors,” she said out loud. “My spear.”

She might have said something obscene, if she had known anything, but she didn’t. She hadn’t learned any obscene language. Not from her parents. Not from her friends. If she had been allowed near the traders she might have learned a few things, but she hadn’t been. So now, when she found the broken part of her spear shaft on the ground, she didn’t have a reservoir of obscenities to draw from.

“Oh, my blessed ancestors,” she said, but her ancestors wouldn’t have liked her tone, which would have been more suited to traders’ language than to theirs. Her spear was broken, so now the only protection she had was her knife, and she knew its twenty centimeters wouldn’t keep her safe. At the very least she had to get the remnants of her spear back. It looked as if it might be as much as a meter from tip to broken haft, and that would at least improve her odds. But at present her weapon was stuck in a possibly dying, but still dangerous, animal.

A quick glance showed her that the other flier was still circling high above them. She was safe there for the moment, at least. She scanned the grass in all directions, looking for signs of the scavengers moving in. They wouldn’t wait for the flier to die before they came. All they needed was the possibility and they would be on their way. But first would be the flying scavengers. The smaller fliers that would never pass up the opportunity to supplement their diet with some protein.

“There you are,” she said, as she saw a few fly in and land just out of reach. They paced, their eyes on their future meal, squabbling and fighting for position. The flier wasn’t dead yet and they were already fighting over it.

She looked all around again. She didn’t have to worry about these little fliers, nor about most of the scavengers that would be approaching by land. They were all too small to be a danger to her, and would be afraid of her anyway. What she did have to worry about was the day runners, who wouldn’t pass up a meal just because they hadn’t killed it themselves. They would be here soon. And after dark, the night stalkers.

The healing wound on her rump twinged at the thought. She needed to get her spear. She needed to pick up her stuff and repack her panniers before she lost anything. And she needed to be away from here, safely encamped by the river, before this place was swarming with hungry animals.

It was still high noon, which surprised Sage. It was only a few minutes since the attack, but it seemed as if it should be more. Everything was changed. Moments ago she was walking alone across the grassy stretch of land between bends in the river, and now she was anything but alone. Animals were converging on this spot from all directions as if called here by a gigantic dying flier. At least, she hoped it was dying.

“Of course it’s dying,” she told herself. “It can’t survive that. A spear right through it.”

The problem was how long it was going to take. She needed to get her spear back. What was left of it, anyway. She didn’t want to be retrieving her spear while surrounded by every predator and carrion-eater from farther than the eyes could see. But she couldn’t be pulling on it while the flier was alive, snapping and clawing at her. For now she was going to have to be like the small scavenger fliers, waiting impatiently just out of reach.

She stared at the flier, which was trying to get to its feet. It couldn’t quite stand all the way up, nor could it stand for long. It would rise on trembling legs, then slump forward. Then it would struggle up and fall again, making painful and pitiable progress in the direction of its distant aerie. Was it thinking of home? Possibly its mate?

Sage shrugged. She could see it wasn’t going to get far, and she didn’t have any feelings to waste on this thing. It was here because it was trying to kill her. She shrugged again and turned to the task of fixing her panniers and putting her stuff back in them. She might as well be doing something useful while she waited for the flier to die.

The pannier wasn’t too badly damaged. One of the ropes holding them on had broken, as had the hinge on the lid of the right one. Maybe the flier’s talons had struck her glider, which was lashed on there. It had certainly hit her hard enough to break things. She lightly touched the abrasions on her chin and neck, remembering.

By the time she had the pannier fixed and repacked, the flier had stopped moving. It was sprawled on the ground with its long neck stretched out. Its head was on one side with the two top eyes seeming to stare up at its mate circling high above. The only movement was its weak breathing and the occasional twitch in a limb. It didn’t even seem to react to the few small fliers brave enough to land on it near the protruding spear point. They were helping themselves to the blood there. Something to tide them over while they waited.

Sage took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Now was as good a time as any. She walked forward, scaring the little fliers, who screeched angrily at her as they jumped off and flew down to join the others. The big flier watched her with its two exposed eyes, but made no move to stop her as she took hold of her spear just below its gleaming point. She didn’t know what she was expecting, but she was surprised by how easily it came out. The flier gave a shudder and a cloud of insects rose, then resettled on its body. Sage held the one meter of remaining shaft, turning it so she could examine the blade. She nodded with relief to see that it was still intact.

By the river, in the shade of the trees, Sage put another piece of wood on the fire. A hundred meters away, out in the late afternoon sunlight, the flier’s body was a welter of noisy activity. It died while she was putting on her panniers, and she had glanced up to see its mate wheeling away toward home. She had cleaned up her spear point and ensured it was firmly attached to its broken shaft. Tomorrow she would begin the search for a suitable piece of wood to replace it.

With her hand on her glider, she said, “Well, what do you think of that?”

She couldn’t tell from how it vibrated what it thought.

Announcement

I have decided to release The Plainsrunner under a Creative Commons license – Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (CC-BY-SA). To celebrate that, I am going to publish it here serially, one chapter at a time.

Please let me know in the comments whether you’re enjoying this. It will help me to decide whether to do it again.

rjb

Chapter Nine – The Day Flier

Sage bandaged her ear. “Great,” she said. “Two white flags now.”

As she packed up the medicine bag and stowed it in its pannier, she said, “This can’t go on.” She was touching the artifact, which vibrated. “You’re right,” she said to it. “Sooner or later that flier is going to get me.” The glider vibrated again.

She thought about it for the rest of the day, not forgetting to keep her eyes, all four of them, actively scanning the sky for the flier, and any ground cover for day runners. She thought about it while she was setting up camp, with its barriers and its fire. She thought about it while she was fishing, trying to catch that night’s meal.

Maybe if she moved faster. If she did more cantering, even galloping, and less walking. She pictured it, then she shook her head. The flier could fly faster than she could run, even at her fastest gallop. And it could still pick her off, too. All the running would do was make her more tired when it caught her. So that wouldn’t work.

She reset her bobber upstream. Maybe if she traveled at night. Set out when the day fliers were heading back to their aeries, and travel all through the cool night. She shook her head and snorted. Yeah, right, she thought. Then I’d only have to worry about the night fliers and stalkers. Both of which can see in the dark, while I can’t. I’d be worse off than I am now. She reset her bobber and watched it spin in an eddy before heading downstream.

How about between them? she thought. In that spell between the day predators and the night predators. There were a couple of hours each morning and evening, in the twilight between darkness and light, when none of the big predators were active. That was tempting. She could travel safely, without having to worry all the time. Then she shook her head again. She’d have to set up camp twice a day and there would only be a few hours a day when she could cover the huge distance she had to go. No. It would take too long.

“But it would be safe,” she said.

No. It would just mean more time for things to go wrong.

She tossed her bobber upstream again. She was beginning to think there were no fish in this part of the river. How about the torch? she thought. I could travel at night with the torch. That would keep the predators away. And I’d be able to see.

She shook her head again and sighed. The torch couldn’t be guaranteed to last all night. When it ran out she’d be helpless. And even if it did last one night, she’d have to replenish it for the next night, and the next. That meant having to gather and prepare the materials. Pitch and tallow. Maybe if she had rendered down that young day runner when she had the chance. She sighed again. Her best bet was to travel by day, as she had been doing, and find some way to deal with the day flier.

She reeled in her line and gave up on the fishing. When she pulled it out of the water she saw that the bait was gone. Great, she thought. I wonder how long it’s been like that. She trudged back to her campsite, stowed her fishing gear, and built up the fire. Then she dug out some of her dried food for her evening meal. She automatically estimated how long it would last her, which wasn’t long enough. She ate with loud crunching and stared into the fire. She had to think about things. Her food. Her predicament. The day flier.

Food she could deal with. She’d gather more. She knew about lots of plants and roots and fungi that she could eat. And she could kill or trap some small animals. And if it got bad enough, she could eat the next day runner that tried to eat her. She shuddered and spat in the fire. Maybe if she cooked it long enough, or smoked it hard enough.

As far as her predicament was concerned, she soon realized that there was no point in thinking about it. She was banished and if she wanted to survive for any length of time, then she had to get to the city. She didn’t know anything about the city, other than the stories she’d been told of evil, doomed unbelievers. If she could believe the stories, then she’d be better off to be killed and eaten by a day flier than to set one foot in the city. She shrugged the front part of her shoulders, where her arms were separated from her front legs. All she could do was try to get to the city and deal with what she found when she got there.

As for her current problem – the day flier – she’d have to deal with that now, and the only way to do that would be to kill it. She watched the flames dance. She was standing between the fire and the river. That meant that anything trying to get at her had to get past the barrier and the fire first. She knew that nothing dangerous was going to come out of the water behind her, and she was also safe on the land side. That knowledge allowed her to sleep. Perhaps not deeply or for very long stretches, but at least she could get the sleep she needed. But it wasn’t coming tonight.

She was trying to think about how to kill the day flier, but she couldn’t think of a safe way to do it. The only way it was going to get close enough to kill was if it was after her, and the only way that was going to happen was if she was out in the open, exposed. She couldn’t lead it into a trap because she would have to go on ahead to prepare the trap, then come back and walk toward it, hoping that the flier would attack at just the right moment. She couldn’t stand out there, ready with her weapons, because it only ever attacked from behind. She finally realized that she was just going to have to carry on normally, and keep herself in a state of constant readiness. Once she admitted that, a plan began to form. As risky and terrifying as the plan was, it was enough to allow her to sleep.

Sage practised all the next morning. The timing was going to be everything. She had to plod along looking as if she wasn’t paying attention, while maintaining a vigilance as sharp as the edge of her spear. She carried it in her left hand, low and close to her body, careful to make sure that the Sun wouldn’t glint off the blade. She wanted the flier to think that she was careless and unprepared. From its perspective she would look like the perfect prey, decorated with a dirty bandage on her right ear, another on her rump, and a bright white one on her left ear.

Every few hundred meters or so, during the cooler part of the morning, before the flier had enough altitude to come after her, she practised the maneuver. It was a vigorous move that required her to commit herself completely to it, physically. That meant that before anything happened she was already scraped and bruised. Each time she did it, she knew that she was going to hurt the same scrapes and bruises again. Her body wanted to stop, or at least let up a little, but she forced it to continue, again and again, until she felt ready.

After that she plodded along, trying hard to look like easy prey, but moving her head enough that she could keep the sky behind her under constant surveillance. Finally, just before noon, she spotted it. It was almost invisible, showing her its thinnest profile. And it approached in such a way that it didn’t move against the background. It was just a thin silhouette getting gradually larger.

She had to control her instincts. Don’t turn the head to get a good look. Don’t run. Don’t dodge. Don’t twitch. Don’t give it any reason to think she was anything but easy pickings. Indistinctly, she saw it pitch up a little, its big wings catching a little more air. At the same time the four sets of talons came forward and the head came down, the beak agape.

At precisely the right instant she dropped to her belly, flattening herself as much as possible. At the same time she brought her spear up, its blade angled back at her attacker. In an instant it was wrenched from her hands. She heard a loud crack, then the flier screeched in frustration, rage and pain, and she was driven forward, her face pushed into the dirt.